Magic Leap or Hololens Which Is Better? A Review From Our Marketing Co-op

It’s the big fight, between two giants in tech. Microsoft versus Apple for the battle of the century. Who out of the two has the better AR (Augmented Reality) headset?

Hold up Llamas… Apple only started their AR glasses 19 months ago and will only release their tech in 2020? So who’s there to fill that vacancy between the Microsoft Hololens and their mega rival?

Well I’ve got great news, because the Magic Leap One headset is here to fill that position.

With the release of the Magic Leap to certain creatives there has been mixed reviews. If you haven’t been following AR news, Magic Leap is a private company that started in a Florida basement by creative genius Rony Abovitz. The company has received 4.5 billion in seed money, one of the largest (if not the largest) in history. So does Magic Leap’s device live up to the hype it has relentlessly received all over the news?

LlamaZOO is here to help you. We tried on the Magic Leap One and the Microsoft Hololens, so you didn’t have to.

“It’s optically better than the Hololens, the color is more vibrant and it has controller + gesture”

Lucky, our awesome technical llama had the opportunity to try on the goggles. Overall Lucky felt like it’s a step above the Hololens.

Among other reviewers, though there has been a general point being made:

“For a 4.5 billion dollar company, it doesn’t really seem like it’s worth the money. Ya it might seem cool, but really compared to the videos that Magic Leap presented it didn’t live up to expectations.”

Well I’m here to give a different review and compare it to the Hololens later on.

From what I’ve heard the Magic Leap is exactly what I wanted. A step towards the right direction, and fortunately not a disappointment. Today we’re in an age where VR/AR is still incubating and we haven’t formulated whether its fantastic or not.

Look, when the first iPod came out, it wasn’t the awesome iPhone XS we have today. Unfortunately, in this digital age, we expect technology to be at the top of its class. We are so used to tech being top of the line 1080P, perfect comfort, and amazing touch sensitivity that these kinds of expectations will only hinder our progress. If we expect the greatest technology to be put in front of us immediately, then companies will be afraid of putting out experimental projects due to the fear of letting consumers down.

That is why we should celebrate the Magic Leap, it is a step forward in the right direction.

The Magic Leap One has many features incumbent in it.

Magic Leap has a gesture feature and a controller with a touch sensitive trackpad, built in batteries, and all the other inputs a regular VR controller (Think Oculus) should have.

Lightpack computer platform that the user carries around to power the high power processing for the Magic Leap.

Voice (speech to text) + real world audio (ambient).

Lucky also speculates – based on what he’s seen – that the Magic Leap has an opacity layer in the lens. This means that the virtual objects the user sees will look better per pixel.

These features guarantees that the Magic Leap is the most innovative AR technology yet. Their amazing visuals, and easy to use technology is vital in continuing to move AR forward.

How does it compare to the Microsoft Hololens though?

First of all, personally I find that the Magic Leap looks cool, like really cool. It seems sleek and has a less bulky design than the Microsoft Hololens. It’s also futuristic, something we’d only imagine being in Hollywood movies. The Magic Leap is also easy to put on with an “MP3 like” side pouch that maintains the high powered processing of the machine, which wasn’t inconvenient at all.

How are the specs compared to the Hololens? It’s easy to say that the Magic Leap has a much grander field of view. The depth of field allows the Magic Leap to focus better on virtual objects, which is why Lucky speculates there is an opacity layer. This by far the most important feature making the Magic Leap stand out from its competitors.

On the other hand though, the Hololens has an option for users to put on prescription glasses. Although, the Magic Leap promises to have prescription lenses for their AR technology, it can be highly likely that the consumer would have to pay extra. Also the Hololens is a standalone product, giving users accessibility to put it on and off quicker than the Magic Leap. The Hololens also has the Window store, since they’ve been around for two years they have had many notable features within the store that the Magic Leap probably doesn’t have.

So what does LlamaZOO think of all this Magic Leap hype? It depends on who you ask, for some it looks awesome, others believe it didn’t fulfil their desired performance. Whatever your opinion, it’s definitely a step ahead of the Microsoft Hololens. However, we are still waiting on the soon to be released Microsoft HoloLens 2. Microsoft being one of the largest AR producing App company is sure to have a strong position in the AR market even with strong competition. So we’ll have to see where 2020 will take us.

LlamaZOO is a data visualization company specialized in integrating data into one place.